#i'm not putting in paragraph breaks deal with it

[the-universal-sun]

in NEED of some sad little stan with ford comforting him.. maybe him telling ford about his past being homeless and regressing from talking about the memories

Thank you for the request and very sorry it took so long to get to it, I hope you're still here to read it! I enjoyed writing it very much, even if Stan doesn't regress until about halfway down. I do have some drabbles in the works that are lil' stan all the way through though...Enough about that, thank you again for the request, I hope it lives up to your expectations! I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! It was a good prompt and I thank you again, Anon, for the ask! Sorry if the tone seems to flip flop around, I took a long break to finish up some chores when writing this.

As always, I'm open to helpful comments and advice, please enjoy!

TW: Stan talks a little about his time in the back of a trunk, but it's essentially just Stan describing his feelings and dropping when telling Ford. If you want to void that paragraph, it starts at "It was about the time I spent in Mexico" and ends at "get his words out without blubbering. "

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It was a rough night for Stan. There was a storm going on out on the water and the violent rocking of the Stan O' War made him stumble and burn his tongue on the still hot stew was made, then he just couldn't find the right position to sleep in, his back hurting on his side, his front, when he was laying back on his orthopedic pillow, nothing was right. And when he did finally manage to get to sleep, nightmares and memories he wishes stayed forgotten clawed at his mind all night, finally jerking him awake too early in the morning for anyone to function. Anyone but Ford, that is, who seemed well rested and eager to start the day. Stan swears his brother was whistling a tune while he made coffee he was just that damn chipper. Stan wasn't. He wanted to sleep, but he knows even if he could, nightmares would find their way back in, and he cannot deal with those right now, not with how close he was to dropping and regressing-which he honestly wasn't in the mood for right now, his body and mind to anxious and exhausted to focus on that allure. Instead, he just grunted when Ford asked him about how he slept. And he only gave short one word answers throughout the day, his mood souring further and further as the humid sun beat down on them. He thought he was doing well in hiding it from Ford until, around late afternoon, his brother turns to him, arms crossed and an expression that was identical to their mother's when she got annoyed with their attitudes, and demanded an explanation.

"Stanley, what is the matter with you today? You've been crochety and grumpy all day, and it's starting to get on my nerves." He stands there, waiting for Stan to respond. Jesus, can't Stan have a bad day without it being turned into a big deal? He heaves a sigh after a few moments, not wanting to get into an argument with the way he's feeling.

" 'S nothing, Stanford, just had a rough time getting to sleep, s'all. Nothing for you to worry about." He shrugs, trying to keep it casual and not alert his brother to just why he had a hard time sleeping. Stan hopes he'll drop and they can go back to setting up fishing lines. Stan doesn't think he can keep a good grip on his pole today, so he's got the rail grip out for it. He just wants to sit back and relax and not think about bad dreams and phantom body aches.

"Hard time sleeping? Was it the storm, Stanley? It was pretty rough last night, but it ended around 2 am and I've seen you sleep through rougher. Though I do recall hearing you complain and grumble about your back periodically throughout the night..." Stan, knowing his brother will reach some sort of conclusion on his own, whether accurate or not, just sighs again and starts putting up their fishing gear. Once Stanford got started, it took a while for him to finish, and once he comes to his conclusion, whatever it is, he's going to insist Stan go and get some rest or, god forbid, talk about it. Yeesh, just thinking about it made his whole body cringe. He's finished packing everything up and is halfway to the door back inside before Ford pipes up with his conclusion as to what Stan's problem was.

"You had a nightmare! Probably of a memory that just came back to you! Why didn't I see it before! You're always in a dour mood when you have a memory come to you in this form, it should've been my first thought, really! I was too absorbed in writing down my latest findings...that...I..." Ford stops, wincing at the sight of Stanley's blank stare from the doorway, eyebrow raised. Stan only rolls his eyes up, earning another wince, before he gestures to the open door. If they're going to have an emotional talk, Stan would rather do it in air conditioning. He leaves the box of fishing gear by the door and heads to their room, he'll need the comfort of his teddy bear if Ford's going to make him talk about his nightmare. And trust him, Ford will make him talk, probably by sheer annoyance and pestering. He grabs his Teddy and heads to the kitchen, bypassing Ford loitering in the door way and ignoring the stare aimed at him. He doesn't need to feel like he's going to regress to have Poindexter, the stuffed toy has been a comfort for him since he was 19, and it's still one now, no matter his headspace. He settles in the kitchen, grabbing a diet Pitt Cola, more for something to do with his hands and mouth than desire to drink it. He adverts his eyes when Stanford settles down in front of him, staring silently.

"Stanley, you know we need to talk about this, if it was a memory, it needs to go in one of your memory books, just in case you have a lapse. You also need to talk about it for your own mental health, you know what Mabel says, bottling your emotions will only lead to explosions." Stan loves his great-niece, he truly does, but she was all on abord with his brother when he got into his "caring about peoples (Stanley's) emotions and helping them with their mental health." phase, which is seeming less like a phase every day.

"Yeah I had a nightmare, it was about an incident during a drifter days. It was sucky and I hated it, and I'll write it down in the Bad Memory journal later. There, we talked about it, I'll go rest now. We done?" Stan starts to get up from the small table.

"No we are not done! You actually have to talk about it, Stanley, share the details of your nightmare with me. And I know you won't write it down! So we are going to sit here and you are going to talk. And trust me, I can play the waiting game. I can play it all day." Dang it, Ford's stern about this, and Stan knows he means it, waiting for him to talk. He's done it before, they sat there from sun rise to almost sun set before Stan gave in and talked. He sighs, cracking open the soda and setting his bear next to him at the table, talking more to it than to Ford, not wanting to see the disappointment in his eyes. He takes a while to gather his thoughts, to think about the best way to get through this. He grabs his teddy with his free hand, just to hold and pet so his nerves can calm down.

"It was about the time I spent in Mexico, there was an-uh-incident and," Stan blows some air out of his mouth, wondering why it was so hard to talk about this particular memory with Ford. "I had to chew my way out of a trunk." He still refuses to look at him, staring down at Poindexter, his worn but well loved Teddy who's been with him through everything. Stan's amazed he's never lost the poor thing, with how many times he's been on the run and in jail-thankfully they keep the stuff you had when you went in and kept your car impounded if you were in for less than 3 years, so no one was able to throw him away. He keeps his grip on Poindexter tight as he talks about his nightmare, how terrified he felt and how he truly believed, for the first time in his life, he was going to die. He recounts the experience, and not without a few barbs and poor tasting jokes, going from holding Poindexter to hugging him tightly, needing his comfort. Stan can feel his headspace creeping up on him, already so close to dropping and getting even closer to it the more he talks. He doesn't even realize he's started rocking until he knocks into the table, startling him into silence until Stanford quietly urges for him to continue talking about his nightmare, his brother writing down his words in a memory journal. Stan starts slipping further and further as he gets to the part where had to chew through the harsh metal of a car trunk, he can feel the tears sting his eyes, but he can't worry about them, too focused on being able to get his words out without blubbering.

He finishes telling Stanford about his nightmare, was it really a nightmare if it was a memory of his, with a joke about his dentures. Stan doesn't know if it didn't land because of the situation or because it was actually bad, he's still refusing to look at Ford, burying his face in Poindexter's fur, feeling so close to dropping, he's teetering over the edge, and so upset about his nightmare. He wishes he never remembered that situation, he could've gone the rest of his life clueless and he would have preferred that. He flinches when he hears Ford get up and sit next to him, is he going to tell Stan what a disappointment he was for getting mixed up in such a bad crowd? Will he sigh and say he should've taken better care of himself? Stan doesn't know, and he's scared to find out.

"Oh, Lee," Ford sighs next to him, a six-fingered hand curling through the strands at the back of Stan's neck, his gentle touches breaking away the last of the dam holding back his tears and pushing him over that edge. He curls into Sixer, clutching his sweater and sobbing, sobbing over how scared he was, how scared he still is, the nightmare's affects lingering throughout the day. He never wants to think about that moment ever again. Stan's finding it hard to breathe his how hard he's crying, coughing harshly every couple of minutes. His brother slaps his back to dislodge his coughs, rocking Stan's body with his own. He sniffles, wiping his face on Sixer's chest, and wraps his arms around him, making their rocking go faster. Stan likes it when his brother rocks him, it's better than his rocking, it calms him down way faster, too. They just rock together for what feels like eternity, he's stopped crying at some point, but he still clutches Sixer, enjoying the touch and the sensations, the nice a comfy warmth he brings. His brother always knows how to chase away his scary feelings and thoughts, he really loves Ford.

Stan panics when he feels Ford pull away, clutching at his sweater and whining, he's so scared he's going to leave him again, Stan doesn't want to be alone, he wants his big brother to hold him and rock him!

"Lee, it's alright, I'm just getting a warm cloth to wipe your face, alright?" Stan just blinks at Ford, not really understanding what he said. He just stands when his twin stands, he doesn't want to be alone, he has to follow Sixer. Stan holds his hand as tight as he can and follows Ford to the bathroom, he cries when the lights get turned on, they hurt his eyes, they're too bright! He flicks them off, rubbing his eyes, they sting and burn even more now. Stan just wants to go and get out of these itchy clothes and cuddle Poindexter, but Ford's got to be in the bathroom for some reason, which means Stan does too, even though he doesn't have to go potty now. He flinches when the cloth touches his face, it's got but it does feel good, Stan hums and lets his brother pat his face with it, lightly rocking on his feet and clutching his stuffy to his chest.

"There we are, the hot water might help soothe some of the irritation in your eyes from crying, but if your eyes start to swell, I've got an ice pack in the freezer if you're amenable to that." Stan doesn't know what Sixer's talking about, his head's too fuzzy to pay attention to all the details and the big words his brother's using. He hums again as Ford smooths his hair back, he loves it when his hair's played with, it makes his body feel just like jelly-or is it jam that jiggles and falls down? Stan doesn't know, but he smiles at Sixer, he's still rocking away, but it feels nice to do, it's a nice rocking, a happy rocking, not a bad and tight tummy rocking. His brother looks, now that his glasses are back on, sad and all frowny, and Stan doesn't like that, so he lets Poindexter hug him, that's sure to cheer him up. Poindexter's hugs always cheer Stan up, why wouldn't they work on Ford.

"A-ah, thank you, Lee and Poindexter, for the hug. I appreciate it very-um very much." Ford rubs the back on his neck, giving the toy a hand armed hug and hesitant tap on it's "back", still unsure about hugging a stuffed animal.

His brother always looks so awkward when he hugs his stuffies, but, and Stan gives him a big hug, too, he looks happier than before, so Stan was right, as always, his friends hugs cheered up Sixer! His brother is the one grabbing his hand this time, walking them to the bedroom, Stan swinging their joined hands together between them for the short walk. "Lee, how about you go pick out some comfortable clothes while I fix the bed up. I'll help you get dressed when you've got them picked out, yes?" Stan understood enough of that to know that Sixer wants him to get some jammies out, he already knows which ones he's going to pick, his absolute favorite pair. He nods and gives a little salute, giggling when Ford tickles his chin, moving his face to escape the tickling but the hand keeps following him until he pushes it away, wanting to get changed. He watched his brother go to his bed, staring at it for some reason, before he goes to his dresser and pulls out his Special Jammy Drawer, the words capitalized to show how special and important this drawer is; it had all his fun and comfy pajamas and socks. Stan doesn't even need to look for his jammies, his favorite pair is right on top. It's a pair of fuzzy brown footies and it has a hood, but even better than the hood is the ears and tail on it, they look like a bears! Now he matches with Poindexter when he's got them on, that's why they're his favorite! Sixer always gets a kick out of it when he roars and rolls around on these, too.

"Have you got your clothes out yet, Lee? I've got the bed all fixed up with your special blankets and special pillows on it. I've even laid out a heating pad, it should be warm enough to feel once you've gotten dressed." Oh boy, Stan's special blankies are his favorites, and he gets a heating pad! He's got an achy back, so he sometimes needs a heating pad if it gets real bad, his special pillows are for his back and neck, too-Sixer likes to say something about "proper support" but Stan just likes how it makes his body feel like he's a giant laying on hills. But his blankets he can't rest without. One is a giant and heavy blankie with dinos on it, but the other is his tip top absolute favorite. It's a big and warm quilt with so many different patches and patterns-Stan added some teddy bears to it himself and they only made it look better-and some nice old lady gave it to him when he was really cold at a shelter once, it was just before he got Poindexter, which means it's also been with him forever and ever and he doesn't know what he'd do without it.

Stan's snapped out of his thought when his brother takes Poindexter out of his arms, Stan cries out and tries to follow him but calms down when Sixer puts him on the bed, right, he needs to get dressed and can't hold his friend to do that. "Steady now, Lee. Hold on to me." Ford always helps him get dressed, scared he'll fall and hurt himself, it's only ever happened one (or thrice or five times), but Stan likes it, it gives him a warm gooey feeling in his chest and tummy, he likes that his big brother wants to take care of him and soothe his ouchies when he gets hurt from falling. "Step in one leg at a time, Lee, we don't want to fall. Left leg in, perfect. Right leg now." Ford's voice is soft, so are his movements, he gently holds and guides Stan, helping him step in the legs of his jammies and threading his hand through the sleeves, zipping him up almost all the way but not to the top, Stan doesn't like things zipped up or buttoned up all the way, it makes it hard to swallow. "There we go," His hood is flipped up, the bear ears sticking out, "one Big Bear ready to lay down and rest easy." Stan does a little "roar" and makes claws with his hands, but he doesn't think it scares Sixer, his brother just laughs and rubs his head, which makes him pout before a tummy poke brings out his ticklish giggles.

"Alright, lets get tucked in to bed now. Ah-" Ford tuts at Stans returning pout, tapping his lips to usher it away, "You don't have to sleep, Lee, but I just want you to lay down in the quiet, okay?" Stan can do laying down, maybe not quiet, but he can 100% lay down in a comfy bed surrounded by Sixer and Poindexter and his blankies. "Perfect, let's get your glasses...alright, let's get you settled, Lee." As Ford tucks him and Poindexter in, Stan wonders if Ford will get in with him if he asked. Is Ford going to stay with Stan? The thought of Ford leaving makes him whimper, clutching his brother's sleeve. He can't leave, Stan needs him here with him! To protect him from any scary dreams or memories or monsters!

"Lee!? What is it what's wrong?" Ford panics, thinking something, another memory perhaps, caused Stanley's panic. His face crumples when all he gets his a whispered and broken "stay" and teary whines, did Stanley think he would leave? After what his memory was about? He gets on his knees, the joints cracking, before he speaks:

"Oh, Lee, I'm not going to leave you. I'm going to stay right here by your side, I always will be by your side, for the rest of our lives. So please, don't cry, I'm not going anywhere." He rests his forehead against Stanley's, one hand holding his, the other grabbing the pacifier he laid on the side table, bringing it up to his brother's mouth-which immediately latched on and began to chew, the repetitive movement obviously soothing, his body goes lax soon after.

Sixer said he'd stay, he always says that and he always stays, so Stan settles back down, chewing on his pacifier and hugging Poindexter, and lets his brother finish tucking him in, the blankets tights around him, the pressure is soothing. He keeps his head turned to face his brother, needing to see him, to make sure he's really going to stay, snuffling when his hair gets soothed back, the hand resting on the top on his head. Stan doesn't feel tired, not sleepy tired at least, but it feels nice to let his body relax against his bed and brother, just letting himself float in his fuzzy headed feelings, not really thinking of anything, just existing.

It felt nice.

[lxnarphase]

do you have any advice for new writers who want to start posting on tumblr?

Oh man, I'm gonna give you a list of things I wish I could've told myself when I first started posting.

Some Basic Tips:

Don't be scared to post! You'll never see growth in your followers, mutuals, and even your writing if you don't post!

Be open to asking others for help or advice if you struggle with writing. I sometimes ask some of my mutuals for help or read fanfiction to see how others write a scene. Then, I take the knowledge and write it in my own way. For example, I do well with writing dialogue but find myself always struggling with how to start the story.

Don't be afraid to post about non-writing things, too! Remember, you deserve to have fun on your account, so post what you want. You aren't a machine. You are a person!

The number of notes you get doesn't determine your worth or skill in writing. In my opinion, Tumblr has shifted a bit, making it harder for smaller writers to get likes, reblogs, or comments on their works.

But at the end of the day, in order to enjoy being a writing blog on Tumblr, you have to enjoy what you are writing and posting. Do not feel like you have to force yourself to write just for the numbers, let it happen naturally. Things will start out slow at first, as all things do, but you'll get to a point where you can barely keep up with things.

Post and Blog Formatting + Style:

Formatting is really important! Break up paragraphs, ask a friend to be a beta reader, and for longer works, go back and proofread if you have the time! It's okay if you have minor mistakes, though. I tend to miss things in my writing, and when I return a week later, I just fix them. No big deal!

Nowadays, aesthetics is HUGE for fanfiction posts and your account. Channel your creativity and style! Make your blog super pretty in your own way! It can be pink and cutesy, black and edgy, simple and clean, or colorful and cluttered! Don't have a blank blog!

PUT YOUR AGE CLEARLY SOMEWHERE! In your bio, pinned post, SOMEWHERE IT IS EASY TO SEE. I have had writing accounts follow me but no age, so I don't feel comfortable engaging with them.

You can take inspiration from other accounts (don't outright copy, though) on how they format their fanfictions. You will probably notice a lot of accounts have headers, dividers, or colored text. You can do that too, as it can catch the readers attention.

I get headers from doujins and mangas I read, websites such as Pinterest are good for cute ones, and Twitter is your go-to for more NSFW headers.

Create a tagging system to make navigating your blog easier, and have a pinned post with links to your rules/byf/masterlist/etc.

Try to put warnings in your writing. A lot of people have filters on to avoid the types of content they don't want to see, but there are the occasional people who don't put warnings in the writing post itself. It could be a simple tag or a list of themes at the beginning of the post.

An example would be a post with the tag #dubcon #tw dubcon OR putting "cw: dubcon" in the post itself before the writing itself.

This is a tag vs. in the actual post

Tagging and Reblogs

Speaking of tags, USE THE TAGGING SYSTEM! If you don't tag your post with popular fanfiction tags, it will be hard for people to find you.

Only the first twenty tags will show up in Tumblr search, including your own blog. Reblogs will not show up in tracked tags or searches.

However, don't feel bad for reblogging your own works again. Do it as many times as you want. You created something and should feel proud of it! I still reblog things from January just because.

Making Mutuals

Don't be afraid to engage with other accounts. That's how you make friends on here! But here's something important:

Be genuine. Make mutuals because you enjoy each other's work, AND both have fun talking with each other! If someone doesn't add you back as a mutual, that is okay; don't feel like they have something against you! Making mutuals shouldn't be your only goal when posting on Tumblr. Otherwise, you might tire yourself out mentally. It took me a while to make mutuals on here, but I'm glad it did it naturally instead of trying to force it.

Asks and Anons

Once you build a following, you will get the most wonderful, loving, and supportive anons in your inbox! Cherish them, respond to them, and have fun with them! Because there is a very high chance, you will also get assholes in your inbox.

I say this from the bottom of my heart but do NOT give hateful people your attention because that is what they thrive on. I still get them, but when I tell you I am at so much peace, I block and delete the messages and carry on.

If a certain message bothers me for a bit, then I just take a little break, talk to some friends about what happened, and do what helps me calm down so I don't act rashly. Don't be afraid to turn off anonymous messages for a while. This is YOUR blog, not theirs.

Don't feel pressured to answer every ask or fulfill every request. Take your time because that can burn you out! I love socializing so much, but sometimes I just pull a blank on how to respond to my asks. I always ensure my mutuals and followers know that I'm not ignoring them and just tend to go blank-brained with some asks, OR I save some of them to look at when I'm sad!

Overall, just start and DO IT FOR YOURSELF.

That's the best advice for when you want to make anything. You just have to start posting and learning and improving as you go on. Hopefully, this will sort of help. I know it's not the best list of advice, but it's just some things I would tell myself back when I first started.

If you have any other questions, I can try my best to answer them!

[scificrows]

i like to make fun of murderbot for being all "i hate everyone, i don't care about anything or anyone, fuck off" while simultaneously caring very much about the people around it and the situations it finds itself in. i love how it "accidentally" ends up caring quite a lot about the friends it makes along the way. but i think something that i tend to forget is that murderbot actively decides to care - at least at some point in its story.

idk, as a person that struggles with depression, this paragraph from artificial condition really resonates with me. prior to all systems red, murderbot had contracts. it had routine and it had protocols. it knew what it had to do to just get by, how to perform so no one would notice it had disabled its governor module. it was deeply depressed, yes, but it was functioning (for lack of a better word). in artificial condition, murderbot's routine is gone. it cannot go on in that state of numbly going-from-contract-to-contract, putting in as little effort as possible, consuming media to cope. that option is gone because it escaped (and note that escaping the company was not an active choice, it kinda happened to it). murderbot has two options now: it can either gather all its energy; actively do something new and difficult and distressing; change something in its life and try. or it can let the numbness and the emptiness take over and stop trying. if murderbot wants to survive as a rogue secunit, it has to try. no matter how difficult that is. the wording in that paragraph really hits home for me. the way the non-caring sees an opportunity to slip in and to take over. does murderbot even care? does anything really matter? is anything really worth the hassle? wouldn't it be so much easier to just let your mind slip away a little, to go numb, to be passive, to watch media and wait for things to happen to you? wouldn't it be nice to stop thinking and struggling and feeling complicated things? to stop making an effort? you've been dealing with a lot lately and maybe it's time to just shut down. maybe you'll just take a little break. just slip deeper into this chair and start the show. time flies when you're not paying attention. trying is exhausting. who cares if you don't do the things you wanted to do, you were supposed to do. it'll be fine. let's just ignore those things for now. just let the non-caring take over. just stop thinking. you can deal with the aftermath later. just watch your shows. who cares. but murderbot cares. it decides to care. it decides to fight with all it has and i think that is so brave. and i think in the later books caring is less of an active decision for murderbot. once you start caring, it's easier to keep going than to stop; and murderbot, for all its "i'm a grumpy rogue secunit, leave me alone" behavior, knows just how important caring is. so it's not that it doesn't know what's happening; rather, it lets itself care. tl;dr: caring is not the default for murderbot, it's just the more difficult of two options. and it decides not to take the soft option. it decides to struggle. it decides to care. and so it does.

[toskarin]

how did you get started making music, tools-wise?

I've talked about this a bit before and I don't necessarily recommend doing this, so skip the following two paragraphs and go right to the one under the break if you actually want the method I recommend

I lied to a girl I liked from my school and told her that, because I could play guitar I could also play piano, so I could teach her to play piano. both of these statements were lies.

I had to panic and learn both guitar and piano one week ahead of the lessons I was giving her as an excuse to hang out. so I self-taught in a haze of panic and "maybe she'll like me" (she did not) (but she kind of did) (but she was bicurious) (but she was wishy-washy on if she wanted to get together and her parents didn't like me) (and her parents were homophobic) (I think she might have texted me at one point years down the line to tell me she had a girlfriend but it was after I deleted our text history and I'm chronically unable to remember to put people's names into my contacts so who knows)

but that's all an aside. that's a bad method.

anyway if you want to start making music in earnest, doing what I did when I got serious about making songs instead of trying to impress girls whose parents wanted to destroy me with their minds here's a better answer

go acquire FL Studio. it's apparently really easy to do this because people have been acquiring it for years, or so I've heard. FL is good for learning because you've got 20 years worth of free tutorials available to you on youtube to dig through and plenty of stock vsts to play with out of the box

FL Studio is, realistically, the only tool you actually need to start making music. you could get away with less, but it's what I used, and as long as you don't pick up Specific Bad Habits, your experience with it will transfer to other DAWs if you decide to switch it later

that's all, really

if you go this route, the golden rule I'm going to impart on you right now is that you need to have a limiter on your songs. the default FL studio song templates have one, so you should keep it until you know enough to know why you might adjust something like that

it doesn't matter if it sounds fine in the editor without a limiter. everyone thinks it's not a big deal at the time, but as you get more experienced, there's literally nothing short of getting in legal trouble that you'll regret more than realising that your old work is almost entirely unsalvageable because you didn't put a limiter on it and now half of the audio is just lost data to clipping

I'm gonna put a few more recommendations for things I've used, just so you can consider them if you need something else to chew on. everything past this point is entirely optional and you'll do just fine with FL Studio alone. in fact, probably don't worry about everything below the line

-=-

items marked with [F] are free.

DIGITAL AUDIO WORKSTATIONS THAT AREN'T FL

for tracker-based editing and chiptunes, use Renoise. you'll either love or hate trackers, and while they have a steeper learning curve than piano roll DAWs, they might come more naturally to you. I personally think that Renoise is a lot of fun to use. it kinda has an "addictive" quality to it, as funny as that is to say

for quickly sketching songs, use [F]Jummbox. it's an html workstation (multiplatform!) that writes your sketches to a url, meaning it's pretty easy to collaborate on musical sketches. Jummbox is good for making chiptune style instrumentals, but what makes it especially accessible is the fact that it works on a piano roll system, which will be familiar to you if you're working in FL

for writing sheet music, I recommend starting with [F]Musescore. I'll warn you right now that there aren't really any good notation editors and you're making lesser-of-evils decisions when you pick any of them, but it's probably the best compromise out there right now. it's the one I use when I need to hand something to a physical musician. you can also export pieces as midi, although there's better ways to do that lol

-

VSTs

if you can acquire Pianoteq, do that. if you feel uncomfortable with acquiring it, [F]Keyzone Classic is free and can sound pretty nice with a bit of work, but you really have to learn to work with it

if your workstation can handle it performance-wise, go pick up [F]Vital - Spectral Warping Wavetable Synth. there's tons of free presets for this out there and it sounds good. cool synth. Serum: Advanced Wavetable Synthesizer is also good and has plenty of presets, but it's on the pricy side, so consider how comfortable you are with [finding a friend to buy it for you]

[F]Decent Sampler doesn't do much out of the box, because it's just a tool for playing sample banks, but if you go to [F]Pianobook, you can find tons of weird and fun sample packs of just about everything you can imagine. sounds derived from folk instruments, industrial equipment, lego sets, stylophones, choirs, whatever. incredibly useful.

Valhalla VintageVerb. this is the reverb plugin. you want this one. [F]Valhalla Super Massive is also good but it's more focused on alien-sounding reverb effects and enormous spaces, so it's kind of got a niche use case and you should be a little careful with it

if you've heard a lo-fi hip hop song on youtube, it probably used [F]iZotope Vinyl. this one can save you a lot of time if you're going for that sound because it comes with all the little vinyl flourishes outside of compression (like dust crackling) that you'd otherwise have to add yourself

[F]Genny VST is advertised as giving a genesis/megadrive sound, but what actually makes it shine is that it's an actual synth emulating the YM2612 and SN76489 sound chips. this means you can create your own sounds that work within those specs, which is a lot of fun! definitely beats just using samples, if you ask me

-

HARSH VSTS THAT I PERSONALLY LIKE BUT WHICH ALSO MIGHT !!HURT!! YOU. SO BE VERY CAREFUL USING THESE.

[F]Tritik Krush is a bitcrushing plugin. it does a good job of bitcrushing and downsampling. I use it a lot in my songs, but you've really gotta know how to keep this one under control, because it's fully capable of making painful sounds on accident and can completely devour your mix

[F]FSA Latcher is a gorgeous noisebox. it screams in horrible ways and makes dying machine noises in various colours. this is the musical equivalent of working with radioactive material, so be extremely careful using this in anything you don't want to hurt the listener's ears

girlfriend just told me I have to recommend [F]Noise Engineering Ruina to you if I'm making a category with this heading. I don't personally use it, but she likes it (she's better at music than I am) and it's free, so you should go pick it up. "it annihilates sounds very deliciously" (maybe I should use it)

-

hope that helps a bit!

[sunshine-zenith]

I remember someone pointing out that even by anti-fairy standards, Irep's cube shape was unusual, and that it might have something to do with Anti-Wanda craving/eating rectangular objects all throughout her pregnancy lmao. And even if he can change his head shape- I'm assuming that changing his name to Irep specifically to match Peri was also a choice and he's just really committed to the bit.

But I do hope he comes back, if for no other reason than I'm fairly certain they were on good terms by the end of the original series; or at least, Peri didn't hate Irep, and was actively trying to befriend him. Did they pull a Hazel and Dev and that friendship only lasted until Irep got jealous of Peri again and then the cycle just. Continued infinitely. Why is Peri gloating and laughing in Irep's face these days.

Like I don't think Irep has really changed through the years, but Peri definitely has and it's clearly impacted their relationship.

I just wanna applaud those last few paragraphs because you helped out to words another thing I was thinking about — Peri grew up, and he looks it. Irep hasn’t, if anything he’s gotten less mature. Him still looking like his infant self could be a reflection of that, either by the writers out of universe or as a subconscious manifestation in universe (or, yeah, it could be all those couch cushions lol)

He did specifically call Peri’s name change irritating, so I’m imagining there’s some bitterness on his part at least

I do desperately hope that if we get a season 2, we get something to fill the gap between Irep and Peri’s infancy and adulthood — a flashback, some sort if magic hijinx, even an off hand comment. Outside of their parents, they are each other’s most long lasting relationships, and there was some serious growth by the end of the original series for both of them

When Cosmo and Wanda said to Dev that Peri was waiting for him to call and that he thought they were just “on a break,” it made me wonder if something similar happened between him and Irep — like at some point, they had their own falling out (possibly closer to what Dev and Hazel went through throughout the series’s than Peri and Dev), and Peri just Waited. He waited for Irep to cool down, to call. He put in so much work to befriend Irep, got to know and treasure him, and he was possibly in denial for the longest time about losing his friend (which, again, would just be another loss for him — he lost his brother, he ended up low/no contact with his parents for a while, and now he’s lost his first ever godkid. Having lost Irep would be another thing for him to deal with along the way)

That might even be why he acted so smug about Jorgen putting Irep in his place — it could’ve been a little bit of that years old hurt leaking out, combined with the fresh hurt of his godkid basically rejecting him. Maybe not the most mature way to handle things, but hey, Peri was going through it that episode

I would love to see them possibly reconcile, as a way to officially close the arc from the original series (but that would require them to handle the whole Letting Peri Almost Die From Magic Build Up thing. I give Dev a lot of leeway with that since he legit had no idea, but Irep had to know he was basically committing manslaughter, even if he didn’t think through the fact that if Peri dies, he probably also dies. Dude needs to at the very least give Peri an I’m Sorry for that one first)

[hedwig221b]

Idk what kind of crack c*caine you put in the happiest of all that I STILL read it once a week ever since you posted I can probably recite some of the paragraphs by heart lmfaooo I’d love to know if you have anything similar in the works at any point of time in the future but regardless just wanted to tell how obsessed I’m with this particular fic lol

LMFAO 😭😭😭

I don't even know what to say except THANK YOU??? For enjoying the fic so much? I'm giggling now lol, this is the best message to receive after a long work day 💗 all my heart goes to you!

I mean, I guess, Predators has the same vibe with Stiles running away and thinking it's for the best and Derek being like oh hell nah, love

And I'm gonna write New Moon au (after I finish Twilight au) and the separation scene is gonna be devastating. And Stiles is so not gonna deal with that well. And the reunion is gonna be nuts. I know with The Happiest of All I went all in on the breaking up angst, but here it's gonna be, like, one hundred times more painful.

[toxicpineapple]

writing tips masterpost

hello to my loyal tumblr followers... i am often asked to give writing advice but usually when people ask me this i'm nooooot completely sure what to say despite having a ton of advice to give. it's such a broad question when there are so many different things i can advise on, right? so i thought i'd make a sort of writing advice masterpost where i can compile the tips that i think people specifically in fandoms could benefit the most from hearing, OR that i wish someone had told me when i was still finding my footing as a writer.

hopefully this will be helpful to you. i am putting all of the advice under a read more since this is going to be a long one. let's roll!

✬ paragraph breaks are your friend

the fastest way to get me to stop reading a fic is if i click in and see that there are NO paragraphs made and the entire piece is in a huge block of text. no matter how good your work is, i just can't read it at that point. the giant paragraph makes me get lost, i can't focus on anything... it's a huge no.

the trick is you want your paragraphs to sort of act as a guide for your reader, taking them through the story, keeping them engaged. do not be afraid to do short paragraphs! i can understand wanting to shy away from one or two sentence paragraphs for fear of not having "enough substance" in your work, but the truth is, a thousand short paragraphs is ten times easier to read than a huge block of text.

realistically, you want to have a good amount of variety in your paragraph length. variety is key. readers will notice when your work gets formulaic, and some people will like that, but for others that can turn people away from your work. but don't force it! a paragraph should end at the end of a statement, or if the paragraph is getting too long then cut off the thought and continue in the next paragraph with a transitional phrase.

as a general rule of thumb, you want lines of dialogue by different speakers to be put in separate paragraphs. you also want to avoid doing huge chunks of narration or exposition in the same paragraph as you introduce a new speaker. just make a new paragraph! no big deal. i guarantee you your reader will be way more engaged and nobody is going to come at you for doing more rather than less.

✬ make sure the reader knows who is speaking and when

you don't have to end off every line of dialogue with "she said" and in fact i would really recommend you don't. but you ALWAYS need to have some kind of indication in the text as to who is speaking, otherwise the reader can get lost.

this doesn't necessarily mean that you always have to explicitly say who is saying what, though. if it is obvious in a scene who is saying something -- so for example, a scene where there are only two characters talking OR the dialogue has some kind of phrase, statement, etc that makes it obvious who the speaker is -- then in that case you can just let the dialogue speak for itself. sometimes in writing less can be more. you disrupt the flow of a scene if you start to exposit unnecessarily when the reader could reasonably work something out for themself.

✬ "said" is your friend too

related to the last piece of advice, here's another note: don't shy away from using the word "said".

don't overuse it, either. obviously, you don't want every single line to be "he says" "she says" back and forth, especially when they might be asking questions or shouting, in which case the word "said" probably isn't all that applicable at all. but it's a nice default. if you catch yourself busting out the thesaurus, my recommendation? quit it. just use said. it's not going to hurt you and the reader isn't going to mind.

but yeah, in the event that a character is raising their voice, whispering, inquiring -- there are tons of other words you can use in lieu of said and then an adverb. it's just context-dependent, and also, you don't really want to lean too far one way or another. like i said, variety is key. too much of the same breaks immersion.

✬ if you wouldn't say it yourself, probably don't use it in writing

another related tip. look, i get it. you want to spruce up your writing with synonyms. but the fact of the matter is that a lot of these words that "mean the same thing" on paper actually have wildly differing connotations and if you don't understand what those are you're going to look kind of silly whipping out a word you just found off the internet. we can usually tell, too.

your vocabulary will naturally grow and expand as you continue to read and learn. you don't have to try and force it to seem smarter in your writing. people who can write compelling prose and dialogue without throwing in fancy words they barely understand look a lot more intelligent than people who have a thesaurus at the ready 24/7.

✬ if there's a simpler way to say it, take it

this one can be sort of style-dependent, so if it's not your cup of tea then feel free to take or leave this tip, but in my opinion, taking a whole seven-line paragraph to describe a simple action wastes both your and the readers' time.

how many times have you read a fic where the main characters are having a conversation with these long rambling paragraphs between lines of dialogue? sometimes this makes sense! if you were writing a death note fic it would absolutely make sense for light or L to be pausing every few seconds to carefully analyse their opponent's move... but that's not always the case. sometimes characters are just making small talk.

i'm not saying you can't show off. you should show off where applicable. but there's a time and place. sometimes a scene benefits more from you taking the easy way to describe something and moving on. flowery language is great, but if you're meandering too much the reader will lose interest and attention.

✬ a metaphor is useless if nobody knows what it means

writing is subjective and highly personal. write for yourself first and foremost, and use the metaphors that feel right to you -- but the best metaphorical pieces, to me, are the ones that people can understand and identify with.

you've read a story like that, haven't you? with a reoccurring theme or motif that comes back into play at the end in a way that makes you feel so satisfied and complete? THAT'S what you aim for with literary devices like that. if you write a story that nobody can understand, with metaphors that just don't make any sense -- then you haven't really successfully told a good story, have you?

i understand wanting to have a magnum opus. i think it's easy to fall into the "misunderstood writer" mindset where you want your pieces to be so magnificent that only the likeminded will get it -- but writing is a form of communication. metaphor is just another means with which we can illustrate how we feel. you WANT your readers to understand what you're doing with the metaphors, you WANT the people who step away from your story to know what you were trying to say. you don't have to be obvious, just make it good. make it something that can be reasonably drawn from the text.

at the end of the day flowery language is just flowery language. that doesn't actually make your story good.

✬ grammar intermission

(.) period/full stop: used at the end of sentences. oftentimes not used at the end of sentences in dialogue, because lines of dialogue are considered a fragment of a larger sentence. use a period/full stop at the end of a line of dialogue if the dialogue is followed up by another complete sentence. example:

"i just went to the store," he said, scratching his head.

"i just went to the store." he scratched his head.

(,) comma: used in the middle or to separate different clauses (parts/sections) of sentences. used for incomplete clauses, AKA sections of the sentence that could not function as individual sentences. also used to indicate a slight pause. example:

she reached for the ripest banana, plucking it from the bunch.

a comma can also be replaced by a conjunction like "and" or "but". example:

she reached for the ripest banana and plucked it from the bunch.

(;) semi colon: used to separate different complete clauses in sentences, AKA sections of the sentence that are related but COULD function individually as their own sentences. example:

he sighed as he looked out the window; it had been so long since he stepped outside.

not to be confused with

(:) colon: used at the end of a line that leads into or introduces another line. example:

his fingers drummed restlessly against the window sill. it was finally happening: he was finally leaving this place.

(-) hyphen: used to connect compound words like three-years-old or hyphenated surnames like jones-smith.

(–) en dash: used to indicate ranges of time or distance, like 3–4 hours.

(—) em dash: a girl's best friend. slash j. but an em dash is used to indicate a few different things: an abrupt end to a thought or sentence, a "cut-in" where you interject something tangentially or unrelated before returning to the original thought, or a diversion in the sentence/thought. examples:

"no, listen, you don't understand—"

he scowled—an ugly look on his usually handsome features—and told her to be quiet.

it's not like she had wanted it to go that way—but when had it ever mattered what she wanted?

(()) parentheses: used to add additional context, information, or a semi-unrelated thought that would break the flow of an ongoing sentence without completely taking the reader out. example:

"no, i'm sorry. i just forgot to call you this morning," he said, looking away. (in truth, he'd sat by the phone for fifteen minutes trying to psyche himself into it, but hadn't been able to muster the courage.)

✬ show don't tell, and tell don't show

show don't tell is one of the classic pieces of writing advice that i do, often, think is correct -- but it's a little more nuanced than just never telling your readers what a character is thinking. you want the work to speak for itself without you implanting messages or themes into the reader's brain. at the same time though you don't want them to be doing too much work because it breaks immersion.

this ties into what i was saying above about simpler being better sometimes. you want to be concise especially in scenes that might call for it. a fight scene should be quick and snappy. no need to dig into the physical sensation of being enraged -- just say the character is pissed! but if a character is having a meltdown or panicking, you can get SO much more out of describing how that feels than just outright saying it.

✬ remember your perspective

another huge thing with show don't tell is that you don't want your character to be able to objectively say what everyone else is thinking and feeling -- unless that makes sense for them within the context of the story. really dig into it. DOES the character have a reason to know what their opponents, friends, etc are thinking? how well do they know the other characters? how attentive are they to the emotions of those around them?

it's better to focus on descriptions than labels in that case. say what face a character is making, describe their body language or tone. your character can have impressions, just make it clear that those ARE their impressions. and let your character be wrong! they do not have to be a completely objective source of information.

✬ when it comes to representation, if you aren't confident you can do it well, don't do it at all

i'm one of those people who's kind of of the opinion that white or cishet or otherwise systemically advantaged people have no place being the loudest voices in conversations about representation, least of all AS the representatives. if you are someone with systemic privilege and you choose to portray someone who is oppressed -- that's not necessarily a bad thing. but you need to be willing to do your research and have a sensitivity reader, and you have to be ready for people to say you did it wrong.

not much else to be said about that. your voice on the matter isn't actually all that important. there are people from the demographics involved who DO have stories to tell about themselves that will be MUCH more valuable than your perception of them, so it's honestly better to just let them tell it. that's how i feel.

✬ don't break the rules unless you know how to follow them. in other words, your rebellion should be obvious

a lot of times i see people breaking grammar or other rules and citing "stylistic" choices as their reasons why. which is all good and well, to an extent -- but you want it to be very clear that you ARE breaking the rules on purpose in a way that adds to the artistic merit of your piece.

if you don't know the rules, then it really just comes across like messy work. you both have to know how to apply the rules, and also how to break them in a stylistically significant way. if it doesn't make sense for the rules to be broken, if it says nothing... it's honestly better to just follow them. that's my take.

✬ don't be scared of names and pronouns

i said before that you want variety in your work, and that is very very true -- but it's also true that certain words like names, pronouns, etc will sort of blend into the background in writing. people don't notice them. that means if you're using a name or pronoun a lot in a scene to make it clear who exactly is being referred to...

hey. look into my eyes. breathe. it's okay. you do not have to resort to highlighting arbitrary characteristics of the characters. i know. just breathe. it's okay. use their names. they have them for a reason. it's all good.

this isn't to say that you SHOULDN'T do that, just do it when it makes sense to. if height is something the characters are noticing then use "the shorter boy". if age is relevant, eye colour, hair colour, whatever -- go ahead and use them. but don't be excessive with it. i should not be having to read the bluenette more than i'm reading shuichi's actual goddamn name.

✬ read

this is the huge one. reading other works informs your writing. it teaches you skills and tricks you can use. it helps expand your dialogue and your world view. it might even highlight to you things you do too much of in your own writing. read, all the time, whenever you can. it doesn't have to be books. it can be fanfic, articles, whatever -- just keep reading, because you will be passively absorbing knowledge during that time and it'll help you grow as a writer.

✬ practice

BOOOOOO TOMATO TOMATO TOMATO! SHE SAID THE THING SHE SAID IT!

but listen, it's literally just true. i write almost every day for at least a couple of hours and i have been on a trend of consistent growth for the past five years. go read my fics from 2019 if you don't believe me. i've grown fast and i've grown constantly. you just DO grow through constant practice, even if it doesn't always seem that way.

not only that, but you start to build confidence too. writing a lot helps develop those muscles to a point where you start to realise that you ARE that good and you DO have that dawg in you. or whatever. you just have to keep at it. you're not going to magically improve thinking for six months about how you want to be a better writer without practicing anything about it.

✬ yeah, betas are good

you want to have a good editor. i know that that can feel like having someone ELSE be the reason your piece is good, but that's genuinely not it. a beta reader is a second pair of eyes on your work, someone who can tell you about the issues and mistakes you're missing. they'll tell you when something doesn't make sense. they'll point out your punctuation errors. you don't NEED to have a good editor for every crummy little oneshot... but it's good to have one.

✬ numbers are fine and all but don't compare yourself to other people

i think almost everyone in some kind of creative pursuit wants to get some kind of acknowledgement for it. we want to be the best we can be, and it can be discouraging to receive utterly no validation along the way! i get it!!

just don't get caught up in crunching the numbers. you are not as good as your fanbase is. you alone know your skillset and you absolutely should not say "well this other writer got THIS much attention" because that'll just wear you down. it really will. external validation will only keep you going for so long, and you'll always end up needing more. you HAVE to build your own personal confidence first or you'll crash and burn.

✬ read your writing out loud

there is no quicker way to see if something is wonky in your prose than reading it out loud and seeing if it makes sense verbally. i highly recommend this to anybody who struggles with sentence flow. it's a good one.

✬ yippee hooray!

🥰 and that's what i've got for now. thank you if you made it this far, please take all these tips as you will, it is all subjective of course, these are just the tips that help Me the most when i sit down to write something.

please feel free to ask me for additional advice (on specific topics if you could!) at any time, i love encouraging new writers and i am passionate about writing so i will gladly offer support in any way i can, including beta reading works for anybody who might need that.

take care now 💖

[copperbadge]

Amateur Translation Programs

So I had a lot of imaginative and informative responses to my post about looking for an amateur translation program -- something where I could load in a foreign language and it would insert a box where I could add a translation every-other-line. The idea was that this way I could practice translation with more advanced texts, and texts I chose, and thus move away from Duolingo, which at this point is good for drilling and daily practice but not for more advanced learning.

I didn't find precisely what was needed but I did get some inspiration for further explanation, and I also learned that adding the term "glossing" (thank you @thewalrus-said) into my searches helped a great deal in terms of weeding out programs that were either "Let this AI translate for you" or just endless promotional links for Babbel and Duolingo and such. I thought I'd collect up the suggestions and post them here; at the end I'm including my best swing at designing what I wanted, and why it doesn't work yet.

Suggestion one, from many people, was various ways to generate a page that is simply fixed Italian text with space underneath each line to add in a translation. This is pretty simple as a process and there are sites that will do it for you, such as this one that @ame-kage suggested. However, most of these don't allow for movement in the Italian text, and many produce a PDF which you would need to print out in order to write on unless you're willing to open it in Acrobat (and deal with Acrobat). A good solution for some but not what I'm looking for purely because I'm trying to make this super frictionless so that (knowing myself as I do) I will actually do it.

I did find this version interesting, suggested by @drivemetogeek: Have one word doc saved as your "template" doc and set the line spacing as 2.0 or higher. Select your text from source and paste it into the template doc as text-only. Ctrl a, ctrl c to select all and copy, then open a new document and "paste special" as picture. Right click and set the "wrap text" as behind text. Now you have a document where you can, basically, type over the existing text because it's the background of the page. This seems like the most frictionless version, because you could set up a bunch of them ahead of time. If you wanted to move between desktop and mobile, however, you'd need to ensure that the pasted image was fairly narrow so that you don't have to sideways-scroll.

Relatedly, people suggested generating a document that is simply the Italian text with empty space beneath it for typing in of the translation. This can be done either semi-automated, using a macro or a language like Python, or find-and-replace on, say, the stops at the ends of sentences. It basically outputs the same as above but with a more digitally accessible format, without any more effort than above. If you were to do this in Google Sheets you could also fix the column width so that it didn't do anything weird when you opened it on your phone. But it is still very friction-y, and does not allow for easy shifting of the Italian as needed. There's high probability of the translation breaking weirdly across the page. Still a top option in terms of simplicity and access.

@smokeandholograms suggested another variation illustrated here where essentially you're converting the text to a series of tables, with each paragraph a row, and an empty cell next to it for the translation. I might play around more with this one eventually, since I think I could possibly make it a three-column and put the Italian in one, the translation in the next, and the auto-translate to let me know where I might be slipping in the third. (Not that I trust auto-translate but comparing a hand translation to an auto translation can be useful in terms of working out when I've messed up the way a tense or mood is read. I tend to read indirect verbs as automatically imperative because I'm a weirdo.)

@wynjara linked to an add-in for Word specifically designed for translators, known as TransTools; this appears to employ a macro to do the same thing, though it does have a format where you can place the translation next to each sentence directly rather than in a separate cell. The full suite of tools is only $45 which is reasonable for my budget, but for what I need I think I could also just create the macro.

Using LaTeX as a tool specially designed for glossing was an option on offer, but I don't know enough about LaTeX to figure out the pros of this one, which is in itself the major con -- there's a learning curve that I think varies widely by person but for me is unfortunately a wall. It came out of a discussion on Reddit about trying to find something like what I want; also in that discussion is a link to a code generator that allows you to…do something…to the initial language, but it's not entirely clear to me (I'm sure it's clear to people who understand coding) what you would then do with it that would allow it to be output in the way I'm hoping for. Like, I could turn a paragraph of text into HTML, I understand that far, but any Italian I find is already on a website.

Moving more into apps that might work, Redditors on the LaTeX discussion suggested SIL Fieldworks, which is a professional language tech tool. Fieldworks isn't a program I'd previously encountered but much as with the ones I had, it looks like the learning curve is fairly steep and it is definitely overkill generally for what I need, though it might also harbor within it the thing I want. It is free, so I may download and play around with it.

@brightwanderer suggested using note-taking or "whiteboard" apps such as Freeform or Nebo; these are generally a kind of "infinite canvas" in which you can drop objects, text boxes, or handwriting. I don't know that Freeform would be measurably different to just using Word and a macro, since I'd still have to input/format all the text and then be stuck with the same "fixed text" setup -- and it's also iOS only -- but for some folks it might be more helpful. Nebo is a similar infinite-canvas with unfortunately the same issues, though on the plus it's available for Android, which is where most of my mobile property resides.

@bloodbright suggested that I was looking for a CAT tool, a professional translation tool mainly used by translators working in the field. This was a concept I'd encountered, but I hadn't found a good starting place. They suggested Smartcat and OmegaT. Smartcat bills itself as an AI translation platform and is HARD pushing the "don't translate it yourself, hire a translator or let AI do it" angle, so it's difficult to tell what it offers in terms of actual tools for translators, and it's also cagey about pricing, so I can't really evaluate it. OmegaT is free and gives off big "some weirdo homebrewed this in their basement" vibe (which I am here for) but I also recognized it from screengrabs that were the reason I veered away from professional-grade software: it looked too complex. Realistically, the major downside of OmegaT is that I don't think I can put it on my phone. One thing I did find interesting is that once you translate a portion of the text, the original language goes away, though I assume you can turn that off if needed. I do kind of like that because it means my distractable brain is looking at Less Stuff.

So where did I end up?

Well, it looked like I was going to have to try a homebrew myself. I had the idea of trying some of the initial suggestions but in reverse -- designing a document where every other line was a single-cell table fixed to the page. You could paste in the Italian, which would wrap around the cells, and then enter the English in the cells.

You can fix a table in place in Google Docs -- you click on the table, then under Table > Style select Wrap Text, Both Sides, and Fix On Page. Getting the whole page set up is a little labor intensive but once you did that, you could just save it as a template and make a duplicate of it each time. And this actually works….on desktop.

Unfortunately, if you open it in the mobile Docs app, the app can't handle the fixed tables and automatically moves them all to after the text that's been pasted in. I tried redesigning it so that it's a table within a table -- one for the Italian, then within that a series of them for the English -- but when you nest a table in Google Docs, it doesn't let you fix the second table in place. And you are also still dealing with the wrap issue, although you can resize the page and add a large right-hand margin as a kludge of a fix for that.

You can build this same kind of document in Word, so I tried building one in Word and then uploading it to Drive, but when you open the Word file in Docs (or in Microsoft Word for Android), it still strips the fixed positioning -- there's just some functionality missing from both apps that doesn't allow them to handle fixed-position tables.

So, the design is sound, just not the final execution. If I could program an app, I could probably remedy the issues with it -- it's simply a series of text boxes nested inside one another with different formatting. I would imagine that's relatively basic to set up, although given that neither Docs nor Word can handle fixed tables in mobile, perhaps I've stumbled on a much bigger problem that everyone is ignoring because nobody actually needs or wants fixed tables in mobile. :D

Experimentation is ongoing, anyway. I might simply have to resign myself to the fact that my translation study is going to have to be in front of a computer, which might be for the best anyway when I inevitably want to compare my translation to an auto-translate to see where I might have read something wrong.

[cornyonmains]

I finally got around to watching X-Men '97. It was better than it had any business being, and I'm just so disoriented.

Episode one. Almost immediately you know they've got someone on the deck who knows how to hide gay shit, because one of the first things you see is Gambit in a crop top.

So, Charles is MIA, but he put Magneto in charge. He rolls up on the mansion looking like a whole-ass Herbal Essences commercial. Him, Rogue, and Gambit spend most of the season in horny jail, and I'm just sayin' Krakoa can have more than one threesome but I digress.

Morph is thirsting hard for Logan. There's a brief scene where they're going to troll him in the shower that looks like something I read on Joe Phillips' website in 2003.

Scott Summers has finally gotten his day. He's still so tightly wound you could use him to launch a cotton ball through Wolverine's skull, but you finally get to see him be as good as he is in the comics. They had him ice skating around with his beams, doing figure eights before he ass blasted sentinels into next week. Bishop was there, he ass blasted them back to the current week to avoid a paradox.

There's a scene where Scott tells Logan not to break Jean's heart. We all know what's going to happen on Krakoa. I did not miss that shit.

Where's Storm you ask? In horny jail with Forge. In the desert. Fighting demons and horseback riding. Jubilee? Locking down a sugar daddy and finally having her powers developed.

And all this isn't even going over the plot, which is genuinely good, and deals with heavy subject matter such as discrimination and genocide in heavy tones that don't condescend, instead of that after school special kind of tone cartoons that aren't specifically geared towards adults often have. The kids watching are going to hate the villains passionately instead of just finding themselves waiting for the X-Men to save the day.

Did I mention Magneto's fabulous hair yet? It looks like what would have happened of Fabio had believed it wasn't butter. Or if Farrah Fawcett found that flower from Tangled. He looks like he's having the kind of sex you read about in dogeared copies of Lost Souls during your teenie goth phase.

I wish I knew how to take things seriously enough to give this show the review it actually deserves, but I'd get two paragraphs in and decide I want to play Scribblenauts instead. Anyways, my point is, watch the show.

[archon-maenad]

oh my goddddd I am so so so not normal about the concept of the endbringer truce, even more than I am about kill orders (and I am very not normal about government licensed assassinations).

the endbringer truce was ratified. and cauldron was obviously responsible for it crossing from cultural phenomenon to an actual set of laws, but to push that in the first place they had to make sure the concept was deeply important. and it is, it's become a cornerstone of both caping and just being a citizen of earth bet.

that leads to a lot of different ways to look at the concept. there's the cynical outlook, the bitterness the ordinary citizen feels when villains get away with running roughshod over them just because they show up to endbringer fights. heroes have their own flavor of this too, because there's a very real sacrifice of morals that comes from working with a nazi. even if people agree the ends justify the means here that doesn't mean those means don't cost you something. no hero on bet has clean hands, and they know it.

then there's the emotional outlook, where all the feels congeal. I'm such a sucker for humanity banding together, even in the face of hopeless odds, and the endbringer truce makes me tear up when written right. a week from now they'll be at each other's throats but in the moment, with levi or behee or simmy looming above, with the wreckage created surrounding the aftermath, villains and heroes work together. it's beautiful.

and then there's maybe my favorite aspect, the comparative outlook. how starkly the differences in mindset are between earth bet citizens and those of other worlds enchants me. that society has normalized setting aside grudges for the sake of survival in a way that most people can't, because the emotional hurdle is too much to pass even if they get the logic, and stories where that shows are just the best.

I read a post-gm isekai fic where taylor's gambit to rally a group of people against a bigger enemy failed, and that moment stuck with me because she specifically noted that it failed since she assumed the world would have responded like bet would have, and that even baseline humans from her home dimension would have understood the plan. and y'know what they fucking would have. because everyone agrees you Don't Fuck With The Truce.

having to actually explain first why the truce is important just did not occur to her, the argument was focused on why the enemy was obviously truce-worthy. but tay listed out the core concepts and people Did Not Get It and that was such a wild bit of culture shock from her perspective. being too cowardly or morally uptight or selfish to put aside grudges so you can survive gets culled real quickly on bet, but in that new world it was the norm.

it also let to a hilarious moment where she stone cold maimed (or maybe straight up bodied I don't remember) a guy who broke truce and to her surprise people were absolutely horrified. for once tay was not actually trying to deal psychic damage and someone sane could agree that everyone else is overreacting, because maiming or killing people who break truce when birdcages or life sentences aren't available is a completely reasonable response on bet!

I love exploring culture shock and reactions to it in the context of earth bet citizens on other worlds, and the endbringer truce is one of my favorite avenues to do so. it's status as a cornerstone of that society led to a fundamental shift in mindset that truly I am very very very not normal about as evidenced by this nine paragraph post about it.

[dr-spectre]

Ranting about the Splatoon Fandom Wiki....

I wanna quickly make fun of the Splatoon fandom wiki because like most fandom wikis, it's covered with ads unless you use an adblocker, is poorly formatted, poorly structured, has less info than Inkipedia, doesn't update frequently, has missing information, and genuinely is less "professional" than Inkipedia. It also just copies and pastes info from Inkipedia too so there's that as well... I'm not exactly sure how fandom wiki works and how the moderation works but it seems scattered and not good enough by any means.

Like Callie's page for example has this weird ass paragraph that says Callie was left unstable after Splatoon 2??? And it contains a lot of errors and a very weird subjective piece of text in what is supposed to be an objective as possible page, cause you know, ITS A WIKI!!!

She wants to splat shielded Octarians over and over again because that's just in line with her character, she's energetic and silly, she doesn't give a fuck that you need to go behind them to attack them better, she's just gonna splat them up front with her roller, that's just who she is, she represented team Show No Mercy in Splatoon 1 for a reason. Also that dialogue is cut off from what she actually says to further paint this idea that Callie is some broken unstable girl who was a victim of kidnapping and forced brainwashing, for some fucking reason i don't know. I can't even seem to find the original dialogue they stated because THEY DON'T LINK SOURCES!!! HOW DOES A WIKI NOT PROVIDE SOURCES TO THEIR QUOTES!?!?? WHAT!?? I tried checking Inkipedia and even they don't have this dialogue from Callie, so idfk man. All I know is that the dialogue was cut off. Ugh...

From my memory i don't even recall Callie having a new facial animation where her pupils shrink, or it's just so incredibly minor that it's not worth bringing up at all. She also wasn't smiling to hide her panic when her grandfather was kidnapped and insulting Mr. Grizz what the fuck? She was frowning when Cuttlefish dried up and died for a moment!! She was UPSET! and didn't hide it at all! What the hell?! Also facial animations in Splatoon work by the characters swapping between different mouth presets in quick succession, you can see it for yourself when you watch the Idols perform and sing, their mouths don't move smoothly and it makes sense because their language is just gibberish and clipped together audio clips. You can't animate that smoothly unless you spent an INSANE amount of time to animate their mouths incredibly smoothly to match the intentional gibberish and messy vocals. And you gotta do that for EVERY. CUTSCENE. IN. THE. STORY. MODE. That's why the developers just do the cheaper and simpler option to save on time, money and labour.

The "Plenty!" line in response to Shiver's "what is wrong with you?" Is most likely a reference to her quote on quote "airheaded" personality and a subtle nod at her putting the shades back on again and again.

Callie does seem to have mental health issues but it wasn't caused by some "brain warping evil shades oooo", it was due to various things prior to that. Waking up very early in the morning every single day and working non stop, getting harassed by paparazzi, being incredibly lonely and having a strained relationship with someone you used to care about would fuck up anyone's mental health and cause you to overthink and make bad decisions, like join the Octarians and end up wanting to adopt their ideals due to not wanting to go back to your old life and having to deal a fractured relationship with a family member that you think insulted you multiple times on live television, and those feelings and that darkness inside your heart get further amplified by hypnotic shades that cause the restraints in your head to finally break through. But i digress....

Another BIG issue with the fandom wiki is that it's not updated at all, it's extremely outdated, you can check for yourself, find your favorite Idol or character and see if they have the latest info on them, chances are, they don't.

Marina's page is missing Side Order information and new songs.

Shiver's is missing a LOT of gallery and Splatfest information. (No info on Suffer No Fools and "What would you do at world's end?" Splatfest)

Same with Frye. (Frye has the most up to date info on her Splatfest wins and loses yet Shiver doesn't? Huh?)

DJ Octavio's page spreads the incorrect narrative that he uses music to directly control Octarians which has been proven false.

Inkipedia gets it right by saying it's more like propaganda and military marches.

(Although i have my own personal issues with how sometimes Inkpedia talks about Hypno Callie but at least they bothered to include the god damn relationship chart in her page.)

Yeah the Splatoon fandom wiki is just.... bad man. it's awful. It's dogshit. Sometimes i see it as the top result when i search for characters and other Splatoon related content, i don't want casual fans and newcomers to go on that website which has false and outdated information. Please give all the support you can to Inkipedia. It's incredibly rich in information and updates fairly quickly. As a game wiki it's insanely well put together and one of the best wikis out there. It's amazing. If you want to do a wiki scroll and you're mildly interested in Splatoon then it's a great place to get lost for a while and spend some time in.

I just wanted to do a little ranting is all right now. I know that a large majority of people in the community don't like the fandom wiki and Inkipedia is superior by 10000000x but. I just wanted to rant a little. Get my thoughts out there. I'm too attached to a certain cephalopod woman to let poor information about her slide under the radar.

[btr-rewatch]

Big Time Rush Season 1, Episode 18: “Big Time Concert” (Part 1)

Well, it only took me (checks blog) 35 weeks, but I finally made it to the last episode of season 1. Much like "Big Time Audition," this one will probably be posted in multiple parts. Let's jump right in.

Highlights: Like one paragraph of actual episode content, followed by me spiraling into a rambling over the original unaired BTR pilot

The boys run into Gustavo's office all excited. Their first album is finally complete!

They're also going on tour!

Their first show is in two weeks, and we get a daydream sequence where the guys imagine what the performance might be like. The footage from their fantasy is actual footage from a concert they performed in Times Square. I think it might have been their first-ever actual performance in front of an audience like that?

I remember watching that concert special when it premiered on TV.

Just like when they first arrived in Hollywood, Gustavo enlists the help of Mr. X to put them through some grueling boyband boot camp. But with an added twist.

After a montage of the boys bumping into each other, running into walls, and falling off the stage, they make a break for it and run to a nearby supply closet to hide. Sensing his buddies are close to throwing in the towel, Kendall launches into what might be my favorite opening lines to one of his pep talks.

Leave it to Kendall to be like, "On top of his terrible personality, you know what else Gustavo is? Ugly."

At the urging of the other three, Kendall puts his speech into hockey terms, and that made me think about how several of Kendall's pep talks this season have included hockey analogies. I wonder if that carries on through the rest of the series. I know they continue to sprinkle in reminders that the guys are into hockey, but I don't remember it being quite so prevalent as the series goes on.

Onto the Katie storyline. She's up in 2J, hard at work making BTR shirts to sell for the upcoming concert tour. Mama Knight isn't thrilled with the idea of her daughter becoming a bootlegger, but she's swayed once she hears how much money Katie stands to make. I do like her initial reaction to hearing Katie's plan. "How did you get like this? I never dropped you. Not once."

We go back to the guys, who have returned to their concert training where Dak Zevon is ready to teach them all about the art of dealing with rabid fans.

I don't think I've mentioned him much, but I love Dak Zevon. What a fun, goofy character. Curt Hansen is great in the role, and I am always SO GLAD that he was replaced as the original series lead. He's a wonderful Dak, but not such a great "Curt Knight." I remember watching clips from the original pilot back when they were first leaked, and it was like catching a glimpse into a weird, alternate universe. The audition scene especially!!

(this is something I probably should have included in my posts on Big Time Audition, but I didn't think to at the time)

LIKE!!!! Everything about this is so off. Even Gustavo doesn't "feel" like Gustavo. He feels reserved. Not nearly as loud and angry and exasperated as the Gustavo we all know and love. Where's his fire??

It is nice that James got to sing more of his audition song, though!

But the entire scene is off. All of it. Curt is talented, but BTR needed Kendall. I genuinely, truly believe the series (and band) wouldn't have gone on to be successful without him. I'm not sure it even would have survived season 1.

Curt has too much swag?? That's the best word to describe it. He's too pretty boy. Plays the character much too confidently, like he KNOWS how cool and handsome he is, which is so. Not Kendall. Even just the mannerisms. It's hard to put into words, but there's something almost...dainty (?) about Kendall Schmidt's performance throughout the whole series. Like...his mannerisms at times, the way he moves. He's Mr. Captain of the Hockey Team Jock Guy, but he's also delicate? Does anyone know what I'm talking about???

↑ this

Basically, Curt is no tall, blond, and eyebrows. I don't see him having been able to pull off the same level of physical comedy that Kendall does or having that same level of anxiety Kendall carries with him—that constant frenzy of fixing everything and worrying about everyone and holding things together.

(and don't get me started on the original Knight family. That whole scene feels like something out of a bad Disney channel movie)

Well...that was a fun little rant. All that to say that I DO genuinely enjoy Curt as Dak, and I think everyone ended up exactly where they were supposed to be.

Let's pull this massively derailed thought-train back on track. Dak has the guys practice running along the stage to high-five fans. James goes first and is immediately pulled off stage and disappears into the sea of rabid fans. The response to this is delightful.

And because I got so sidetracked while making this post, I'm going to put a bookmark in it right here. Guess we'll find out James's fate in the next one.

[strangeanddarktidings]

Hey all! I'm Ghost, 30+, long-time role-player seeking some discord writing partners. I've been out of the game for a bit but am back around and looking for someone to indulge in various plots. Writing would take place over on discord with a preference for use of tupperbox. I'm a relaxed and easygoing partner looking for the same. Generally, a semi-lit writer (one chunky to three/four paragraphs). Replies can come several times daily or may be a little more sporadic depending on that pesky thing known as life. Partners must be 21 or older, with a preference for 25 or older. Below the cut are some ideas that are top on the list of what I'm seeking. Some are more plot heavy, some are simply spicy indulgent.

Fandom plots:

Call of Duty Task Force 141 Mafia AU plot: This idea has a few iterations that could be played. I'm open to plotting with my partner. The basic idea is that the guys belong to some sort of crime family/families. The group (Price, Gaz, Ghost, and Soap) could function under the umbrella of one crime family, or they could be split among two separate families. Leaning towards a more modern take, rather than that of the 20s througu 60s a lot tend to think of. There are plenty of angst possibilities. Warnings for potential violence. Little more plot heavy before getting into spice. Seeking two separate pairings as I'm willing to double within this idea. Would love to play Ghost against someone's Soap, and a female OC against someone's John Price.

Stranger Things shifter au plot: The Upside down terror has come to a close after Hopper and Eleven face the horrors in the bottom of Hawkins labs. A hope that things could get back to normal. As normal as it could be for a small town full of shifters and non humans could be. Could play Joyce, Jonathan, Steve, or Hopper for this. Steve and Jonathan would be older (college aged 21). Would love to play against Hopper in this, either with Joyce, Steve, or an OC. I see Steve as a scrawny, hybrid dog/wolf shifter, Joyce a bear shifter, Jonathan following after her as a bear shifter, and Hopper as wolf shifter. A little more slice of life. Open to putting them through things to add dynamics and angst. Also willing to double for this idea.

Original character plots:

Trucker driver (m) x naive, innocent thing (f). This would be more of a smut driven plot. Initially, it starts off with the driver chatting up a woman who has this idealistic, naive view of the world. She wants to travel and see things. Maybe a little too desperate for praise. He promises to take her all over the country, eventually trading such things for more physical pleasure. It could develop into genuine feelings between the two, or it could remain a one-sided use deal. Would love to play the driver in this scenario.

Knight x Queen: The king is unable to produce an heir, a year after his marriage to the neighboring kingdoms princess. The agreement hinges on an heir. A deal is stuck in secret with one of his knights, a close friend. The queen and the knight are allowed an affair, kept under wraps, in order to produce an heir. Be fine playing either the knight or the queen.

Good boy x bad girl: The upstanding, youth leader son of a pastor who has never gotten in trouble a day in his life. The one who was never a disappointment and always did the right thing. The bad girl. Name known around town and one that's always in trouble. Tagging buildings, breaking into cars, and throwing wild parties. The one expected to never amount to anything. The two are unlikely to get together. She sees an opportunity to get a pay day and maybe show the world that those "golden" individuals aren't so golden. Chance for genuine feelings or could be utter corruption. Potential chance for angst. Leads into heavy smut.

Vampire x Vampire Hunter: A little cliche but its fun to have two individuals fight attraction but ultimately be unable to give in. Enemies to lovers build up. Forbidden romance with plenty of push and pull. Leans a little more smut heavy but plenty of options to explore and world build with lore and angles that could bring these two together or tear them apart. Could even play with the idea of fated mates. Fine with any sort of pairings here and playing either role.

[writingjourney]

I’m in need of some advice and kind words. As a fellow writer I’m really struggling to believe people will and want to read my stuff. There’s no real engagement anymore and I’m worried that if I post my long-form fic that no one will give it a chance. It’s really bringing me down because I love it so much but it feels like no matter what I try to do my stuff just doesn’t get seen or liked? I’ve even thought about changing my entire way of how I do things since I don’t think the way I write is working for the masses. How do you keep up the motivation as a popular writer and do you have an advice?

Hello anon!! I feel like this is something many of us currently deal with. And first of all I seriously hope that you do share your story!! ♡

To be completely honest with you the lack of engagement in the fandom has for sure impacted my own motivation which is why I haven't been putting as much time into longer fics (nor the Friday Nights series or IKNBS, I do write but I refuse to force myself). I don't feel any urgency because uploading fics hasn't made me as happy as it used to. It feels like only other active writers are reading fic atm and it creates a lot of pressure on creatives to stay super active.

I'm aware that I'm insanely privileged to have the engagement that I do have, that the type of stories I want to write are also the type of stories that generally seem to appeal. However, engagement tells you NOTHING about the quality of your work, only how many people are active in a fandom or like a specific pairing/character/trope. Your own unique voice matters more than numbers.

I also notice that a lot of people who used to read my works have disappeared which I completely understand. The fixation can ebb away during times of inactivity or when a certain hype dies down. People just don't get that dopamine hit anymore and move on. It's also entirely possible they get tired of a certain style of writing and prefer other writers at times, what do I know. I definitely don't blame anyone for that. First and foremost people should read for their own enjoyment and engage with fandom in a way that makes them happy. It makes no sense to pressure people into engaging. A huge issue right now is people overthinking these things which makes support transactional instead of genuine.

I don't care much about notes but I REALLY miss the feeling of sharing a fic with people who are excited for it, that sense of an active community. BUT the activity will come back – the movie will come out, new music and videos, heck even a whole new Papa!!! That's the natural flow of things. We can't be excited and super active all the time, we need phases of calmness as well (which is an act of rebellion in the capitalist hellscape of overproduction and churned out content. I am honestly glad Ghost is taking it easy).

Now, I recommend you write your story exactly how you want to!!! do NOT change it for the sake of popularity because it will lose its very soul and you will struggle to be happy with it by the end. You know how you want to tell your story and nothing else matters. It will find its readers or you can wait and share it at a later point. I recommend that you approach other writers and readers and intensify that contact, make friends and talk to them about your stories, hype each other up, share snippets. It's even more meaningful to know people you like enjoy what you do. I am currently working on super niche fics for non-Ghost characters and I'm honestly having a great time chasing that dopamine by just writing what I'm really into and sharing it with friends. Fandom is community, fandom is fun and we can work to make it better for everyone.

A few general tips when it comes to making stories accessible: Format them to be readable (paragraphs!!), add a "read more" break, add proper content information and a nice summary to draw people in, add some visual appeal like a banners or stock image edits (like i do for IKNBS) and then tag the fics with relevant tags (and only those). Also make sure to tag the OG post, tags on reblogs do nothing for reach. Engage with the community when you feel like it and it's likely that the community will engage back. Being supportive is worth it, being kind is always worth it even if it amounts to nothing.

[tea-cat-arts]

Disclaimer: this is 3am rambling. Whether or not this rant ends up being a cohesive thought is between me and God. Also, I'll be switching around what pronouns I use for Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan every paragraph

"Shi Qingxuan should've chosen He Xuan! Shi Qingxuan would never chose anyone other than his brother-" man, if choosing He Xuan was one of the options he was given, I honestly do think Shi Qingxuan would've taken it.

Cuz here's the thing: Shi Qingxuan was thoroughly sick of their brothers bs. They wanted to go their own way, they wanted to break out of the house, they wanted to handle their demons on their own, they wanted to choose their own gender expression without getting told to "put that thing away", they disagreed with their brothers actions and what he did to turn them into a god... they wanted to get away from their brother, but they never got the chance to unpack or deal with any of that because both of their lives were constantly being put in danger (so they were kinda distracted).

And I don't even know where to start with how Shi Wudu had been breaking down their self esteem, getting them to second guess all their wants/desires/choices, and pulling the "big brother knows best" card on them for god knows how long. I know it came from a place of love, but it still had to have done something to Shi Qingxuan's brain chemistry

Shi Qingxuan options were never "He Xuan or her Brother," it was "chose to abandon your luck for both your lives, or chose yourself and become a murderer" so ya, of course she's gonna go with the first option because she's not a terrible person. Shi Qingxuan probably would’ve chosen He Xuan (who was her best friend, who'd been going along with her antics for centuries, who remembered which resturant she wanted to go to even after the breakup), but that wasn't a card they put in her hands, and even if it was, its not a real card if she had to kill her brother to get it. At that point, giving up revenge and finding love again wasn't an option He Xuan had even considered yet, and it'd be unreasonable to suggest Shi Qingxuan should've come up with a secret third option off the top of her head given she only knew the full story for like what? A minute before she was forced to make a choice? And even though she tried choosing the option that would hurt the least amount of people, Shi Wudu could not for the life of him respect her choices. Kinda makes me think Shi Qingxuan never really was given any choices to make in the first place 😒

Anyways, I'm choosing to believe at some point, He Xuan realizes this, spends the rest of her life trying to make amends, they get some time being a ghost couple together, and then they eventually find peace and disappear into the afterlife

[honeyhotteoks]

Hi Chai! I would love to hear your responses to fic writer asks: 5 (if it's from tnt or across stardust I'll die >.<), 24 (because I'm a creative too and am curious/would love some strategies to add to my toolbox!), 28 (would also love to hear how you get through your least favourite parts of the writing process/make them more fun for yourself!)

of course!! tysm for sending these in

5: first sentence of the fifth paragraph of an unpublished WIP

A body breaks through the guards to your side, making a desperate beeline for one of the boys behind you, the girl’s face streaked with tears and hands outstretched, her shoulder checking yours hard as she pushes her way through into the interior circle.  (across stardust)

24: how do you recharge when you’re not feeling creative?

honestly after years and years of dealing with writer's block i think i do have some good strategies for this, but the first thing is to make sure you stop any kind of thoughts of shame or being unkind to yourself. i used to do that all the time and it always left me feeling worse. as far as some actual strategies? below is a little list-- - close all those WIPs and notes and just go read some fun stuff. become the reader, get inspired by the amazing things other authors are doing. - movies! tv! watch some good stuff that has inspired you in the past or that just makes you feel good. i love writing dialogue, so i always reach for shows that have dialogue beats i love. buffy, the west wing, er, gilmore girls, things that just hit the notes i like to listen to - when you get an idea for something, just write it down or do a loose outline. if you're the type that sits down and is like "chapter one...." and waits for the beginning, try writing out of order or following passion projects. this has gotten me back into writing every time. - follow little daydreams. i'm the type that makes up stories before i go to bed to fall asleep, and every night i'm just throwing yunho into random scenarios in my mind, i can't tell you how many of these turned into fics. - put some effort into creating a fun or aesthetic writing space. my desk area is aesthetic, very vibey, super mellow with golden lightning etc., and with some lowkey music it always helps me get in the right headspace. - if you're writing kpop stuff, watch some old lives. it always helps me find their voices and their mannerisms and sometimes i'll just see scenes appear based on stories they tell, little things they do, etc. - if none of that works or if you're in a real slump? let yourself take a break. go out in the world and forget about writing. all of a sudden you'll find it again in the weirdest little places.

28: your least favorite part of the writing process

so i write in scenes mainly and write them super out of order. for example, with tnt i wrote the minseok claim attempt, the initial heat scene in the locker room, and the woo/san/hwa drinking and conversation scenes first. totally disconnected and i knew what i wanted to happen, but there were all these middle bits to write. so overtime i kept writing scenes but all the transitional parts (like fading into sleep and getting to the next day etc.) all are actually really tough for me to write and i avoid doing them until like the day of posting. it's a wild way to write, but so far it's worked for me.... but it's definitely my least favorite part.